Understanding Politeness in Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis
Politeness: A Pragmatic Phenomenon because it deals with the speaker’s intention. Lakoff: Be clear (Grice’s maxims of conversation), be polite (don’t impose: less cost by indirect form), give opinions (hedges relax conditions), and make the addressee feel good (appropriate formality). Leech: Theory of effective use of language (interpersonal rhetoric). TACT/GENEROSITY (cost/benefit), APPROBATION/MODESTY (praise/dispraise), agreement (disagreement and agreement), sympathy/antipathy, sympathy. Phatic Maxim: Talking for social rather than informative reasons. The irony: using a polite form for being impolite. Banter: S says something that is offensive in a friendly way (laugh). Interest principle: say what is unpredictable and interesting (hyperbole). Pollyanna principle: be optimistic, choose pleasant topics rather than unpleasant by the use of euphemism and diminishing the impact of criticism. Brown and Levinson: Face (honor, self-esteem, public and self-image). Negative politeness: to be unimpeded in action, to be independent, to do as we please (basic claim to personal possessions and private space, rights to non-distraction, freedom of action, and imposition). Pessimistic, he is not sure about the other person complying with his requests. Positive politeness: desire to be approved by others because we need interaction. Face-threatening Act: an act that threatens someone’s positive or negative face. It can be performed: a) On record → directly i) Without redressive action (“Open the door”) ii) With redressive action (“Open the door, please”). Positive politeness → need to be approved (adding a nickname, honey, sweetheart, etc.). You treat the other person as a member of your group. Negative politeness → need to be free from imposition (“Could you open the door, please?”). You are showing respect and maintaining social distance. b) Off record → indirectly. Strategies to avoid threatening the positive face: avoid disagreement, pay attention to H’s interests, use inclusive ‘we’ forms, jokes. To avoid negative face: impersonalize, apologize, use indirect questions, be pessimistic. Weightiness of the FTA Wx = D (S,H) + P (H,S) + Rx /- x = FTA / D = social distance between the speaker (S) and the hearer (H) / P = relative power of H over S / Rx = degree to which the FTA is ranked as an imposition in that culture / Wx = the reason WHY the S chooses among the 5 sets of politeness strategies. STRATEGIES: 1. Bald on record: use of imperatives (have more food). 2. On record with positive politeness: Acts performed directly + appreciation of the H’s wants → claiming common ground (exaggerating, intensifying interests, including S and H: “It was the best day of my life”). 3. On record with negative politeness: Respects H’s wants to have freedom → respectful behavior, minimize the imposition (e.g., “I believe that…”). Off record: no clear intentions of the S, giving more options to the H (e.g., “I tidied the kitchen today” as criticism).
Pragmatics deals with meaning that is:
– Non-literal
– Context-dependent (sentences mean something different depending on the context)
– Inferential (we have to guess the real meaning, what the speaker meant)
– This analysis of the language is descriptive. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: language in context, but the approach is more limited. It deals with connected speech, not with isolated sentences; we move beyond the sentence, focusing on the whole text, both written and spoken texts. FEATURES OF LANGUAGE: Appropriateness, indirect meaning, indeterminacy, context, deixis, reference and inference, presupposition, relevance, accommodation (use of background knowledge), politeness.
SCHEMA: Conventional knowledge structure that exists in memory. Fixed data structure (e.g., Suzy, an office girl, near a restaurant). Script (dynamic schema, a series of conventional actions taking place).
3 Types of Context: 1. The situational context (register): the situation where the interaction is taking place at the moment of speaking. It is important to know the subject matter, setting, and participants. 2. The background knowledge context: what they know about each other and the world (cultural and interpersonal knowledge). 3. Co-text: the context of the text itself.
J.R. Firth: 1. Relevant features of participants, person and participants, relevant objects, and effect of the verbal action. Hymes: addressor, addressee (audience), topic, setting. Other features: channel, code, message form, event, key, and purpose. SPEAKING: Setting and scene, participants, ends (outcomes and goals), act sequence, key (evaluation of tone), instrumentalities, form and style of speech, channel (face-to-face), norms (socially accepted conventions), genre (kind of communication act). LEWIS (coordinates of the index): possible word, time, audience, indicated object, previous discourse, assignment. Co-text: The words surrounding a particular word or passage within a text that provide context and help to determine meaning. Anaphoric Reference means that a word in a text refers back to other ideas in the text for its meaning. To interpret expressions in a particular context, we use the principle of local interpretation: instructs the H not to construct a context any larger than needed to arrive at an interpretation (limited time, place, and setting). Analogy: the individual establishes regularities and generalizes over experience or previous knowledge.
Register Theory: 1) FIELD: Topic of the situation: language being used to talk about a subject matter (technical situation and everyday field). 2) TENOR: Role relationship between participants (power, contact, and affective involvement). 3) MODE: Means of communication—the role of language in the interaction (spatial and experiential distance). Lexical Density: number of content words/total number of words = y x 100 = number (+/- 40%).
GENRE: Texts need patterns of cohesion: TEXTURE and contextual coherence (GENRE). Text expresses genres through structures and linguistic realization patterns. Genre is a term used to classify types of spoken or written discourse. They are classified by content, language, purpose, and form. Key to identify genre: 1. Register Configuration: as language use becomes habitualized, we can recognize speech genres by the recurrence of the situation, developing recurrent ways of language. 3 dimensions of context: field (coffee), tenor (customer-provider), and mode (face-to-face). 2. Schematic Structure: functional stages occurring in a particular sequence. The staged, step-by-step organization of the genre. a) Constituency = means that things are made up of, or built out of, other things. b) Labelling: how the parts relate to each other; criteria for division of stages. In a transaction (formal and functional criteria) Schematic structure for a particular genre: Sales Initiation → Sales Request → Sales Compliance → Price → Sales Request → Sales Clarification → Purchase → Price → Payment → Change → Purchase Closure. 3. Linguistic Realization: to identify schematic structure. 1. Different lexico-grammatical choices and schematic structure (linguistic realization patterns will differ across schematic stages). Recipe genre (title, enticement, ingredients, method, serving quantity). In a service request (modulated declaratives, imperatives, and interrogatives). Macro Genre: found in longer and complex texts, it is possible to identify a range of other genres (exposition, description, and regulations). Systematic analysis of genre: successful or unsuccessful texts, pragmatic and interpersonal contexts, non-fiction and fiction genres, and critical text analysis. Narrative Genre: (Abstract) → Orientation → <{Complication → Resolution} → Evaluation} → (Coda).
Speech Act: acts of doing something through speaking depending on the action of S and H (Constantive and performative verbs: verbs describe actions being performed, 1st person singular or plural, under control of S, present and indicative). Mood structure and illocutionary acts: declarative (statement S+F), interrogative (question F+S and WH+F+S), imperative (directive), exclamative (WH+S+F exclamation).
There are different acts of speech acts (e.g., Call her!).
a) Locutionary → act of speaking: “what is said” (forms of the words uttered) (acting of saying “call her” (meaning call and her).
b) Illocutionary force → “what is done in uttering the words” (i.e., asking, complaining, inviting, promising, etc.). The intention of ordering or urging the addressee to call her.
c) Prelocutionary effect → effect on the hearer, the hearer’s reaction as a RESULT of the words. They are outside the scope of pragmatics; there is no way to guarantee how the other person will respond (persuading the addressee to call her).
Classification of Speech Acts: 1. Declarations: just by saying the verb, you are performing the action; assertives or representatives: what the speaker believes to be the case (state), commissives: acts which commit the speaker to future actions (promise), directives: aimed at the speaker to do something (order), expressives: state S feels (congratulate).
Felicity Conditions: conditions in addition which are required for there to be no defect (impossible to communicate/understand, not serious, joking, not beneficial for the hearer, past, not under his control).
ABUSE: a person might be insincere. This might be unsuccessful because the person may be joking, or the context is not the right one. – MISFIRE = the speech act does not go through because the right conditions are not met. Contextual factors/requirements have to be met. – If a mother says to her child, “I’ll kill you.”
Pragmatic Failure is the inability to understand what is meant by what is said, which can often lead to misunderstanding or confusion in cross-cultural communication. Differences between NNS and NS: 1) Choice: number of suggestions and rejections in academic advisory sessions. 2) Content: specific information given by a speaker. 3) Forms of speech between NNS and NS.
Speech Act Theory provides an account of how some apparently formally unconnected acts go together in conversational discourse to form a coherent sequence. MACROFUNCTIONS: 1) Transactional: “function which language serves in the expression of ‘content’.” Language is used to convey “factual or propositional” information. Language is “message-oriented”; you want to convey information. 2) Interactional: use of language to establish and maintain social relationships.